The field of this invention relates generally to the method of making a food product which has the appearance, taste, consistency and texture of cheese and has the fat contents significantly below that of conventional cheese.
Through recent years, for health as well as cosmetic reasons, there has developed an increasing concern with diet which is focused on diets with reduced calorie and fat consumption. Low calorie foods which look and taste like their higher calorie counterparts have been eagerly sought by the public. To this end, food researchers have concentrated on developing food products which are nutritious and palatable, but which contain substantially reduced levels of calories and/or fat. This has been particularly true in the dairy industry where such low calorie, low fat products as skim milk, yogurt and the like have been successfully marketed.
However, the high fat levels in some cheeses have heretofore been thought to be necessary to have a desirable taste. As a result, those individuals desiring to reduce their calorie or fat intake have usually omitted cheeses such as Cheddar, Blue, Mozzarella, Swiss, Romano, Parmesan and the like from their diets.
Previously, there have been efforts to prepare cheeses which are low in fat. Most conventional cheeses have a fat content of somewhere between thirty-five to forty percent. Heretofore the methods used to reduce the fat quantity of a cheese have produced some cheese with approximately a fifty percent reduction in fat. Although this is a substantial reduction for many individuals, an eighteen to twenty-five percent fat is still too great a level of fat for those on diets. Also, such imitation cheeses have not had a desirable taste.
It is has been believed that a low fat cheese must utilize as a basic component, a cheese product such as cottage cheese curd. It has not been known previously to construct imitation block type of cheeses such as Cheddar, Jack cheese, Mozzarello and the like by utilizing yogurt instead of cottage cheese curd. It has been found that by utilizing yogurt as a basic component, the taste is significantly enhanced and more closely resembles the original product. Also, the imitation food product has the consistency, appearance and texture of the cheese which it imitates.
Cheeses are also frequently used in other types of food. One example of such would be pizza. In the case of a pizza, if a low fat good tasting substitute could be utilized for the cheeses that are placed on the pizza, a significant decrease in the amount of calories and fat content would occur. A great many people within the United States do not eat pizza solely for the reason that it is high in calories and also high in fat. A pizza that substantially reduces both calories and fat would then be potentially consumable by a greater number of people.